Production Narrative

by T. Braunstein

When I was approached by William Blake Press in Washington, D.C. to create a book for their imprint, Windows seemed to be perfect since it was based on the Blake's quotation "If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear to man as it is, infinte." I began to look for a place that could work with me and allow me to create my art in printed form. I came to Visual Studies Workshop because they had a reputation of consistently successful projects with artists. I chose the simple format of the book because I wanted it to reflect the place where most of the source material came from--magazines. Since I had no idea how difficult it would be to distribute these books after they were printed, I decided to produce 1,000 copies. I sold them for $25, each one signed and numbered.

Critical Analysis

by
T. Shaw

Design Features

imagery: The imagery is all found photographs from popular culture source materials such as Life magazine. The photographs are collaged together, mostly of people. Individuals are typically engaged in un-self-conscious, often dramatized acts of seeing or presenting something to be seen by viewers.

graphical: The graphical layout is full bleed imagery often overlapping for effects of pictorial space.

openings: Openings are consistent throughout with the exception of half-title and acknowledgement pages.

turnings: Turnings are consistent throughout with a stronger emphasis on the autonomy of individual pages over layouts based on spreads.

development: The development is consistent throughout with a clearly punctuated ending. Color plays a role in the development in that it appears halfway through the book.

sequence: The sequence is fairly straightforward and nearly every page links through a common image of someone "looking out" at the viewer amongst other imagery.